Addressing printer systems for printing information such as address information (e.g., destination and/or return address information) and other images, such as one or more logos, on a number pieces of print media, such as envelopes or paper, are known (for convenience, the term “image data” shall be used herein to refer to the entirety of the information that is printed on a piece of print media). In a typical addressing printer system, a host computer is operatively coupled to an addressing printer that includes a fixed print head, a transport mechanism, such as a number of belts forming a belt assembly, which transports the print media while being printed upon by the print head, and a feeding mechanism, such a number of rollers, which feeds the individual pieces of print media from a source of print media to the transport mechanism. The host computer electronically transmits the image data that is to be printed on each piece of print media to the addressing printer, which in turn prints the image data as the print media is being transported by the transport mechanism.
Preferably, during normal operation, the feeder motor which controls the feeding mechanism is continuously in an on condition. This continuous operation provides the maximum throughput that the feeding mechanism is capable of delivering. However, due to the speed of the transport mechanism and the length of the print media, there is a fixed amount of time available for the printer software to prepare the received (from the host computer) image data that is to be printed on each piece of print media. Furthermore, a piece of print media cannot be fed until the image data to be printed is ready to print. Thus, if the preparation time for a piece of image data is longer than it takes to feed a piece of print media, due to the complexity of the image data and/or a delay associated with the communications channel between the host computer and the printer, the feeding mechanism must be stopped while the image data preparation is completed. Only after the image data preparation is completed can the feeding mechanism be restarted. The delay caused by such stopping and restarting of the feeding mechanism (known in the art as “throttling”) results in a lower throughput rate (i.e., lower than if the feeding mechanism was running continuously, even if such continuous operation was at a lower speed than the maximum). There is thus a need for systems and/or methods which reduce and/or eliminate throttling in printing systems.